Cold War Veterans Blog

A sad duty grows in demand as veterans deaths tax honor guard

08/06/2008 05:51 AM
Kim Matas

World War II veterans are dying at a rate of 1,500 a day nationally an the death rate is expected to increase for the next two or three years.

By WAYNE WOOLLEY
Newhouse News Service

WRIGHTSTOWN, N.J. — Eyes forward, back straight and Army dress uniform hanging on his 61-year-old frame, Patrick Looney holds the folded flag in his white-gloved hands, looks into the eyes of a widow and begins.

“This flag is presented on behalf of a grateful nation … ”

They are words he has uttered so many times, he lost count “a few thousand” funerals ago.

And they are words he repeats more than ever these days.

The retired chief warrant officer is the leader of the military honor guard at Brig. Gen. William C. Doyle Memorial Cemetery in south central New Jersey. The state-run veterans cemetery is roiling under a wave of dying World War II veterans, now approaching 1,500 a day nationally and expected to increase for the next two or three years.

The onslaught has translated to as many as 25 burials a day at Doyle, a pace that will crush last year’s record number of 2,839 interments.

“You get so worn out at the end of some days, all you want to do is collapse,” Looney said recently. “But we gladly do it. It’s our job to honor the veteran.”

Even in slower times, Doyle was the busiest state-run veterans cemetery in the nation, not to mention the busiest cemetery of any kind in New Jersey.

The uptick in deaths comes at a time of tightening state budgets and manpower shortages. For example, Looney’s honor guard is authorized for eight members but stands at four. Only retired members of the military or active reservists are allowed to fill the state-paid positions. Two of the open spots are vacant, the other two held by reservists who have been deployed.

To fill the gaps, the cemetery borrows service members from nearby McGuire Air Force Base and Fort Dix.

Gary Englert, the state director of veterans services, says working on a shoestring is nothing new.

“We do 40 percent of the volume of Arlington on 10 percent of the budget,” Englert said, referring to the national cemetery in Virginia. The annual budget for Doyle and its 25 full-time employees is about $2.5 million.

Englert, a decorated Vietnam veteran, said the important thing is the cemetery fulfills its commitment to a free burial for every New Jersey veteran, from a Medal of Honor winner to a draftee who served stateside. Veterans’ spouses and dependent children are eligible as well. All they have to do is ask.

By all accounts, the 225-acre cemetery on rolling hills dotted by trees lives up to the promise.

“I deal with cemeteries across the state, and no one looks after veterans like they do here,” said John Hermann, funeral director at the Johnson-McGinley Funeral Home in Wall Township. “They give them the same protocol no matter who they are. And then there’s the issue of money. With the economy the way it is, there are veterans who worked hard all their lives and still end up indigent at the end. But they can come here and they are at one of the nicest cemeteries in the state.”

It takes 13 folds to get the American flag into the tight triangle handed to a family member at the close of a military funeral.

“I can tell in two folds if that flag is going to be messed up when it’s done,” Looney says, before going into a five-minute soliloquy on the finer points of flag folding.

He has had plenty of time to get it right, serving on military honor guards on and off during his career. He retired from active duty in 1994 but landed a civilian job at Fort Dix that required him to continue on honor guards, as well as serving as a casualty assistance officer. He came to Doyle five years ago.

His job at Doyle is a cross between air traffic controller and shoulder to cry on.

On a busy day, Looney and his crew will work to get as many as two dozen funeral directors and grieving families through the cemetery at 30-minute intervals.

Instead of graveside ceremonies, there are equivalent “commitment ceremonies” inside the cemetery chapel or at a park on the grounds. On busy days, ceremonies go on simultaneously. The actual interment of the casket or ashes usually takes place later, without ceremony.

This particular day last week was unusually slow, with only 11 ceremonies.

The veterans laid to rest included Lyman Kay, who served as a military policeman in Alaska during the Cold War, and Robert Dorey, who served in both World War II and the Korean War. There was Antonio Arena, a Navy veteran of World War II, and Adam Reis, a career Navy man from West Long Branch.

William Wynne Jr. regaled his family for years with stories about his experiences as an Army Ranger during Korea, and Theodore Pytko went to work for General Motors in Linden after coming home from Vietnam.

It was a workload light enough to be handled by Looney, Anthony Bokeko, a 59-year-old retired Army National Guard sergeant first class, and Kenneth McAfee, a 60-year-old retired Navy master chief petty officer. The only outside help came from two airmen from McGuire Air Force Base who handled the flag presentation for a veteran from that branch, and two sailors from a Navy Reserve unit at Fort Dix who filled in for the ceremonies for three sailors.

During a break, Looney pointed out that the two airmen went to one knee while presenting the flag to the family members, a bit of Air Force protocol not used by the Army. Noting the age of his crew, Looney joked he was thankful for that.

“If we got down on one knee, we might not get back up again,” he said.

The humor, he said, occurs out of earshot of mourners. So does mention of the crew’s unofficial motto: “If they didn’t cry, we didn’t try.”

Looney said the humor is an effort to relieve the melancholy that can overwhelm an honor guard called upon to bury what some have called the greatest generation, as well as more than a dozen Iraq war veterans.

“You can’t just stay in sad memorial mode; you can’t dwell on it or you’d go crazy,” he said. Still, Looney admits he finds himself overwhelmed — especially when a widow is the lone mourner.

His voice breaking, he said: “You get a big crowd, you just get them in and get them out. But when all you have is just one little old lady, those are the tough ones.”

There were 22 cars in the funeral procession that arrived at Doyle last week for the commitment ceremony for Wynne, the former Army Ranger. The Old Bridge resident and father of six was 79 when he died.

His daughter, Kathy, said her father had made abundantly clear where he wanted to be buried.

“Here,” she said. “Nowhere else.”